Page 23 of Carver
“Maybe I wouldn’t have been ready.”
“It just breaks my heart, the childhood you had. I know you’re worried about being a father, but that’s how I know you’ll be the best one.” Dom blanks at that. “Because you’ve thought about it so much,” I explain. “You know what kind of pain and suffering you’ve endured, all the things you wanted and never had. I know that all the love you were waiting to be given, you’ll take it and you’ll give it to our child.”
Doubt creeps up like a shadow, sending a chill through the room again. “What if I can’t?”
“You learn. We’ll be there to help.” I know I’ve already told him that, but I’ll promise it over and over, no matter how many times it takes, until he believes that he’s got this. “You’ve loved me. I know that you know what it means. The love you gave me was perfect. There is no one better.You’renot perfect, because that’s an impossible standard, but you’remyperfect match. Even through the rough parts, Dom. Truly.”
“If I didn’t have my head so far up my ass that you were so worried about me that you had to keep the pregnancy a secret—”
“You can’t think about that.” I can’t let him tip over that edge again. “You told me not to, so you’re not allowed to either. What wasn’t said wasn’t said and that’s all. But we do havenow.”
“How did you hide it?” He shakes his head in amazement. “You didn’t disappear. Ever. Jesus, you were taking care of me when I was so ungrateful, and you had to have been hurting. You never missed a week. Right after giving birth…”
“There were a few rough weeks after, but I was okay. I had my parents and my brother and sister. They’ve been so helpful. We all took turns, so I was getting enough sleep. I was healing up okay.”
“But how did you- how do you hide a pregnancy bump?”
“Even when I was almost full term, the doctors and nurses commented on how they could barely tell I was pregnant. It happens to some people. I knew, but it was nothing that oversized clothing couldn’t hide, and I usually wore flowy things anyway.”
“And- the birth?”
“When I went into labor, my parents drove me to Seattle to the hospital immediately. They stayed with me. It hurt, but it was pretty quick, and it was natural. I handled it.”
Dominic sits with that information for a few minutes, processing it. I can tell that he’s angry, but not with me. “I was so worried about my face that I- that I missed that.” Not angry. His words are heavy with regret.
“Well… we did video everything.” I made sure at least, that I could give that to him. “I have videos of the whole pregnancy and the birth and every single week after. I made them for both of you. But Dom? I don’t think it’s really just about your face.”He tries to look away, but I catch him under the chin and turn him back to me slowly. “I’m serious. You’ve been through so much trauma. Unpacking thatsucks. It’s wretched. I don’t blame you one bit for needing time.”
His eyes burn in the lamplight, the shadows moving from the room to fall into their depths, swimming there. “You’re the only person who could look at it that way.”
“I don’t think so. I’ve read books. That’s all I do. Read. But I talked to my parents. My brother and sister. I have a therapist app online that I pay for, and when things got stressful, it just helped to have someone tell me how to be there. I never gave specifics. Just that someone I loved was hurting and I didn’t know what to do. My parents told me to keep loving you with everything I had. They knew I couldn’t give anything less.”
“The thought of you being gone for good, that I’d finally achieved what I kept saying I wanted to do—that is the only time I have truly ever not wanted to exist.”
“Only death, my love. Maybe not even that.” The urge to kiss him is so strong, but I don’t know if it’s the right time. I don’t know if I’ll hurt him or undo some of his healing physically, even if it’s not the kind of passionate kiss that could get carried away. “I don’t know how it works. We’ve both read books where love continues after.”
“Will I be enough for her?” he asks. I can see thathe has to. “Will she ever be ashamed that I’m not like other dads?”
A whole wave of feeling surges up in me. “That’s why she’ll love you the most,” I promise. “You see things other people can’t. Long before the accident changed your perspective. That’s your gift.”
“And a curse.”
“Sometimes, yes. You have an artist’s soul. There’s that saying that intelligent people can’t be happy, but I don’t believe that. I just think it’s much harder won, and so much more precious for knowing even the smallest amount.”
“Can I…” He chokes up as he guides me with a hand on my hip, rearranging me so that I’m a ball between his strong thighs spread around me. He curls over my back, wrapping his arm around my waist.
We used to sit like this all the time. I know exactly what he needs. Over the years, Dom has wrapped his body around me when we’ve sat in my family’s fields and watched the stars, when we’ve watched a sunset or sunrise from the back of my truck box with a stack of old quilts wrapped around us, when I’d come to see what he’d carved. We used to walk side by side down the gravel road that runs past my house and Dom would break away and suddenly hug me from behind. He’d sweep the hair away from the back of my neck and kiss me.
A sob of happiness and nostalgia rises in my throat, but I choke it off.
I knew in every one of those moments that I loved Dom, but it wasn’t just a regular sort of love that you can fall into and fall out of. It was the kind of love that happens once in a lifetime. The forever kind.
Dom’s rough fingers brush my neck as he moves my hair, arranging it over my shoulder in a silky wave. His breath sends an electric shock skittering down my shoulder, ending in my fingertips. His lips brush over my neck, below my earlobe. A keening growl escapes him. His hand collars my throat, his thumb pressing into my pulse point. He strokes the rapidfluttering with the softest caress, like he needs to reassure himself that this is real. That I’m more than a dream. That this all won’t disappear.
“Can I meet her?” he whispers against my neck. “What’s her name? My god, I have a daughter. I’m a father.”
“Elowen. It’s Elowen. It means elm tree.”
“What does the elm signify?”
